


and the words are gone (you are beyond)

by kimaracretak



Category: The Good Wife (TV)
Genre: Female Friendship, Gen, Neuroatypical Elsbeth, Rayna POV, morally dubious saint alicia, save elsbeth from that godawful ausa campaign 2kforever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-27
Updated: 2014-10-27
Packaged: 2018-02-22 12:38:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2508098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimaracretak/pseuds/kimaracretak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the trials of partnership, and things sacrificed and gained in its defense.</p><p>Episode tag to 6x05 Shiny Objects.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and the words are gone (you are beyond)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm never quite sure what side of the line between 'quirky' and 'making fun of unmedicated ADHD' the writers think they're walking with Elsbeth but _they did a bad_ last episode and Rayna was the only character who seemed to notice, so.

Rayna catches sight of her partner sprawled across the couch in her office half a second before she catches her briefcase away from the floor. She can’t tell if Elsbeth is sleeping from this distance, but she does know that after what happened in court -- calling it a _disaster_ would be too charitable -- the worst thing she can do is startle Elsbeth. She knows, already, that it’s going to be a night for quiet, a night when Elsbeth’s distractions manifest in taffy-strung words and thick, cloying silences rather than sharp quickilver flashes between obscure case law and even more obscure statutes and burying frustrations under pure edgy excitement at discovering something new. It’s going to be a night for scotch, a night for both of them to end up frustrated and teary-eyed, Elsbeth unable to verbalize her feelings and Rayna unable to convince herself that she’s something more than useless to her partner. It’s going to be a night for them to fall asleep in the office, too drunk to drive home and too sober to risk their safety in a cab alone or their reputations in a cab together.

Rayna really, really hates these sorts of nights.

She toes off her heels at the door and abandons them, crossing the room in her stockings as quietly as she can. She hovers in Elsbeth’s doorway for a moment, wondering if she should stop into her office first, get rid of her suit jacket and heavy jewelry and pull the alcohol out early. But just as she’s about to turn around, Elsbeth’s eyes flutter open. “Hey,” she says hoarsely, pulling herself up to a seated position.

“Hey yourself,” Rayna replies, and despite everything a smile tugs at the corner of her mouth. For all the smudged lipstick and sleep-red eyes, her partner looks ten times better than she did when she left the courthouse, and while that might not be a very high bar, and Rayna might not be sure if Elsbeth is actually seeing her or the jumbled insides of her brain, she’s at least present. Working with Elsbeth has given her a new appreciation for small steps forward. “Want to talk about it?”

Elsbeth groans, pulls her legs up to her chest and buries her head in her knees. “Nope.” The question and answer are practically ritual after shitty days by now.

“Kay. I’ll be back in ten minutes?” Elsbeth mumbles something incoherent behind her as she returns to her own office. Getting out of her suit and into the sweatpants and tanktop she keeps around for nights like these is the first priority, then clearing out her emails and putting both her and Elsbeth’s calls on hold for the rest of the night. Finally, she takes the bottle of scotch and two glasses out of the bottom drawer of her desk and heads back to Elsbeth’s office.

The redhead is still curled in the corner of her couch, and Rayna would’ve sworn she hadn’t moved but for the fact that Elsbeth, too, had changed out of her suit. She watches, perfectly still, as Rayna pours two drinks and turns to the couch.

“Can I sit?”

Elsbeth nods and takes the offered glass, careful not to let her hand touch Rayna’s. “No touching tonight?” she asks. It’s always a toss-up whether Elsbeth will spend one of these nights incurably cuddly, hands everywhere Rayna will let them be, or completely closed off, sitting behind an invisible wall. Rayna doesn’t mind either, and can usually figure out what mood the other woman is in fairly quickly, but she asks every time anyway. And although Elsbeth has never said -- they don’t make a habit of talking about these nights -- Rayna thinks she appreciates it.

“No.” Elsbeth finally speaks. Pauses, considers, amends: “Not yet.” Rayna tucks her feet up under her, smiles fondly across the couch at her partner. “Sure. Let me know.”

They drink in silence for a while, both content to be alone together and enjoy not having to put on any shows for whoever’s watching them. When Elsbeth breaks the silence, her voice is tight with unshed tears. “Why did she do that? Why did it have to be goddamn penguins?”

The “she” is clearly Alicia, but Rayna’s still not sure what Alicia did to make her partner completely shut down in court, or what penguins have to do with any of it. “What did she do? Can you tell me?”

Elsbeth doesn’t respond, just stares into her now-empty glass. Rayna wonders what she’s seeing, feels the familiar dreadful tightening in her chest as she starts to wonder if she had just said the exact wrong thing. Elsbeth’s lips move silently, and Rayna shuts her eyes. She _really_ hates these nights, but right now she thinks she hates Alicia most of all.

“She . . . she had these pictures, in her, in her case files,” Elsbeth finally says hesitantly, sounding equal parts reluctant and determined. Rayna opens her eyes, resists the urge to move closer. “And every time I looked away from the witness she would turn the page, and I . . . I couldn’t, not look, and once I did that was all I could see. And I . . . I tried not to see them, I tried to focus on court but whenever I thought . . . maybe, maybe I was seeing the courtroom again she would turn and . . . I tried so hard not to see the pictures that I. . .” She sets her glass down, pulls her knees back up to her chest, staring blankly at some unidentified point. Rayna holds her breath, unsure whether Elsbeth wants to continue. “There were just the pictures,” Elsbeth starts again, voice shaking. “The pictures and the trying not to see the pictures and I couldn’t think of anything else and god, Rayna, I’m sorry I’m so sorry.”

The last words come out in a jumbled rush, and Rayna feels near tears herself. She hadn’t realized how bad Elsbeth had truly felt in court, and she wants to kick herself for being so annoyed at her partner. “Elsbeth, sweetie, hey, hey, look at me.” Elsbeth finally raises shining eyes to meet Rayna’s concerned ones. “Elsbeth, I’m your partner. I’m not going to second-guess why you felt the need to go into whatever bad place you ended up in. I just want to help bring you back.” She slides closer, reaches out, hands not-yet-touching Elsbeth’s cheeks. “May I. . .?” Elsbeth nods, and Rayna cradles her face in both hands, feeling the other woman’s skin soft and warm under her fingertips. “What do you see?” It’s not the first time she’s talked Elsbeth back, but it never gets any easier.

“The clown . . . he’s by the wall. And he has the top hat from the penguin in Alicia’s picture. And you. I can see you.” The mania is starting to ebb from her voice, but the hand on Rayna’s knee is still shaking.

“Okay,” Rayna says steadily, “Okay, you can see me, that’s good. Is the clown talking?” Rayna has no idea how Elsbeth finds a balance between the things she sees when she’s trying to process information and the things that are actually in front of her, but they’ve both found that the more questions Rayna asks the easier that balance comes to Elsbeth. She’s becoming acquainted with the more frequently appearing characters, and though she's never asked when they represent, trusting that Elsbeth would tell her if she wanted her to know, she does wonder. 

Elsbeth shakes her head. “No, no he’s not talking, just . . . dancing. He’s dancing around behind you.” Dancing. That’s a new one. Rayna hesitates, hyperaware of the knife edge they’re both standing on. “Do you . . . do you want him to stand still?”

“Yes,” Elsbeth whispers. Her eyes flutter shut, her head drops and her hand stills as she mouths stop dancing over and over. Finally, Rayna feels Elsbeth relax under her hands when her lips stop moving, and she takes her hands away from her partner’s face just in time to catch her as she slumps into Rayna’s side. “Okay, I’m okay. I’m . . . okay.” She sounds almost surprised; when she opens her eyes and looks up from Rayna’s shoulder without moving her head, her tears are partly from relief.

 _I’m going to kill Alicia Florrick_ , Rayna thinks, but for now she just holds Elsbeth as she finally allows herself to cry.  They’re together, they’re probably going to be okay, and that isn’t nothing. 

***

“ _Alicia_.” The other woman waits just long enough to turn around that Rayna’s not quite sure if she intended to be rude or not.

“Yes?” One perfect eyebrow raised, and one hand pulling her bluetooth off of her ear, she is the epitome of perfect polite attention in everything except her eyes, which are fixed firmly on a point a few feet in from of Rayna’s face.

“We need to talk.” She doesn’t like this, being the one to go to someone else needing answers with little more than a dubious claim to the moral high ground as a weapon. But Elsbeth is her partner, and there are things you do for your partner without asking questions.

Alicia’s smile is predatory. “Really? Because my client’s really not inclined to settle, especially after that little performance yesterday.”

“Whatever happened to winning based on the strengths of your case, Alicia?” The other woman’s baiting her, and Rayna knows it, but it doesn’t mean that her desire to respond to the slight against her partner is any less.

Alicia shakes her head, smile firmly in place. “I’m not that lawyer anymore, Rayna. Honestly, I’m a bit surprised you still are.”

Well, what Alicia doesn’t know about Rayna’s methods won’t hurt her, but -- “Doesn’t mean you have to lose all sense of civility along the way.”

Alicia sighs. “This isn’t really about the case, is it?”

“No. Only so far as what you did to Elsbeth was about the case.”

“Are you sure you want to do this in the hallway?”

Rayna half-shrugs. “Up to you.”

Alicia tilts her head, gives her a long, measuring look. Finally: “Let’s get out of here. I’ll buy you a coffee. See if I can get you to change your mind about my manners.”

It’s a joke. Almost.

***

The coffee is Starbucks, burnt and watery enough that Rayna refrains from saying anything about how it’s revised her opinion of Alicia’s civility _downwards_ only because she needs the other woman in a talkative mood. Which Alicia doesn’t seem to be in, unfortunately, and the weight of things unsaid settles over their table.

“So what were the pictures all about?” Rayna finally asks when it becomes clear Alicia isn’t going to be the one to start.

Alicia shrugs, doodling meaningless patterns on the table with her finger. “Zealous representation of my client. Winning. Finding my opponent’s weak spots and throwing her off her game.”

“There’s a difference between throwing your opposing counsel off their game and making your friend go nearly catatonic from information overload,” Rayna snaps, not quite believing she’s having to point this out. Could it really be as simple as Alicia not knowing the extent of what she’d done, drawing a false equivalence between the pictures and something as simple as frivolous objections in front of the right judge?

“Sometimes. But, you see, I’m running for State’s Attorney.”

 _Oh. Oh, oh, oh._ Rayna keeps her face perfectly still. She had suspected, of course, everyone had, but Alicia has some nerve using that as an excuse for her behavior in court. “And that means you have to burn all of your friendships first? That doesn’t power a campaign, Alicia, and if you think it does I’ll take my chances with Castro.

Alicia stares, mouth agape. “That’s not--”

“No, Alicia, don’t even try. You hate lying too much to be any good at it.”

Again with the damned eyebrow raise, and there’s a certain amount of smugness underlying Alicia’s skeptical reply -- _“Really? I hadn’t known you were paying that close of attention to me. I’m flattered.”_ \-- that makes Rayna wonder how much easier this would be if they were somewhere where she could kiss Alicia to shut her up. It’s tempting, so tempting to think of as Alicia’s lips close around the rim of her mug - and Rayna dismisses the thought a second later, feeling disloyal to Elsbeth.

“Yes, really.” Time to get the conversation back on track. “You’re good at passively deluding people. How long do you think you’ll be able to keep the Saint Alicia face on if you get elected?”

Alicia tilts her head, re-evaluating their positions in the conversation. “I think you underestimate how willing people are to be deluded. Take yourself, for instance. Defending a blatantly sexist company, and somehow managing to remain free of any accusations of sexism yourself. As if just because a woman defends it, it must be okay.”

So Alicia’s newfound penchant for making cases personal wasn’t confined to Elsbeth. Rayna nearly laughs, thinking about how she had admired Alicia just days before. Now there’s just a grudging amount of respect for how sweetly amoral Alicia is letting herself be, one that leaves a bad taste in her mouth. Rayna’s never been one for burning bridges, but she can’t resist the temptation to scatter a few sparks along this one.

“I thought you of all people would know that there’s a difference between being a good woman and being good. I can get away with being just one. If you want to be State’s Attorney, you don’t get to have that luxury.” She leans forward, allows herself to lay one finger across Alicia’s lips to keep her quiet. “My partner thinks we’ll win. And I believe her. That’s all I need to hold on to.”

She pulls back, collects her purse, watches Alicia’s tongue dart out to lick the space where her finger had been. “See you in court.”

Getting the last word may not undo any of the past twenty four hours, but it’s certainly satisfying. 


End file.
